Leading by Example
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Dancing to the music in pairs.


**Title: **Leading by Example  
**Universe:** Kyou Kara Maou  
**Theme/Topic:** Dancing  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character/Pairing/s:** lightly ConradxYuuri, vaguely GwendalxGunter  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** No spoilers I can imagine, probably just some OOC and silliness.  
**Word Count: **1,499  
**Time: **1.23 (with breaks to do bro's laundry inbetween. Le sigh)  
**Summary:** Dancing to the music in pairs.  
**Dedication:** pyrefly- your request? Harder than I would have imagined. But! It's done! Hopefully to your approval. O.o **  
A/N:** More schmoopy stuff from me—KKM makes me gooey inside, I guess. XD;; This is kind of silly, but I think I'm starting to get the characters talking to me more easily. Maybe. I could be wrong. O.o  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

Gunter sniffed. Twice. "Oh, heika!" he bemoaned, and looked at Yuuri with a mixture of adoration and infinite sympathy. "Oh _heika, _I've _seen_ dancing in your world."

Yuuri blinked. "What, you have?"

Gunter sniffed again. Just once this time, though. "I daresay, it's not anything like dancing here, heika."

Yuuri sighed when he realized. "Right. When you were modeling, right?"

"Most likely," Gwendal grunted, impatiently.

"Oh, _oh_ it was horrible!" Gunter near-sobbed, and touched the back of his hand gracefully to his forehead. "The gyrations! The indignant flopping of limbs…" he spun, and there was a limpid pool of tears in the corner of each, perfectly shaped lavender eye. "It pains me, sire… it absolutely _pains_ me to know that you were raised to consider that sort of thing proper dancing!"

Yuuri stared. "Well, I never really thought that… I mean…"

"Oh!" Gunter sighed again and reached out suddenly, yanking the young king close and holding him tightly against his protective bosom. "My sweet, naïve, wonderful heika!"

Gwendal looked to be trying his very best to not walk out of the room right now and go to do something _productive_. Like knit.

"Gunter," Conrad offered, speaking up for the first time since this whole debacle began, "not all dancing on Earth is like…well, like that," he told the long-haired man soothingly. "And Yuuri already knows at least, the basics of ballroom dance."

"This is very specific!" Gunter huffed, and continued to hold Yuuri's head firmly against his chest. "He has to at least know all the national dances of our allies! There aren't that many, after all! And heika can do it! _Must _do it! It's very, very important!"

"Well, I've no doubt that he can do it," Conrad assured him. "But I do admit it's a bit much to take in all at once, considering he's never even seen most of these dances before." Pause. "Gunter… can Yuuri breathe?"

Yuuri was very, very glad to have Conrad.

"Oh! Oh my! My apologies, sire!" Gunter gasped, and hastily let the young king go.

Yuuri gasped. "Ahaha…it's okay, Gunter," he assured his fussing adjutant, and waved in a placating manner once he'd regained (most of) his breath.

Gunter continued to fret anyway. "And Conrad's right! Absolutely! Absolutely right… you've never _seen_ the dances, I can't, well, I can't teach you if you don't know what it's _supposed_ to look like first, can I? Oh, I'm horrible! What a horrible, _horrible_ instructor I am!"

Yuuri was about to say something about how Gunter was always very helpful no matter what, but Gwendal chimed in then, perhaps having reached the very outer edge of his patience for the day.

"Gunter," he started in a gravely serious tone—the one that never seemed to fail in garnering Von Christ's attention no matter what sort of fit he was having at the time-- "there's no point in fussing about how we've wasted the past hour, as we can't take it back. Why don't we work towards correcting the mistake instead?"

Gunter blinked. "Oh…well. That makes sense, doesn't it? Yes, Gwendal, I think that's very good. We must move on, after all! Look towards the future. Right. So… the, we'll… well, we'll… oh… how do we fix it? I can't even think of that!"

He looked to be on the verge of wibbling again, and Conrad came to the rescue then, once again. "Well, why don't you and Gwendal show Yuuri first, hmm? Then he can watch, and when he thinks he's ready, I'll be his partner and we'll join you both on the floor. That way he can practice and have a reference to watch at the same time."

Yuuri rather thought that was a good idea. Plus Conrad was less likely to stop in the middle of everything on the rare occasions that Yuuri got a step right to praise him and crush the poor king's head into a chest quivering in euphoric teacherly pride.

"Very well then," Gwendal seconded, and stood before Gunter had the time to articulate any of the high-blown protests he would otherwise have on the issue of his not getting to dance arm in arm with heika anymore.

Yuuri supposed it might be Gwendal and Conrad's tag team attack plan as seasoned military strategists to get the job done. As well as possibly save him from Gunter's slightly over-enthusiastic suffocation of joy.

He really was grateful to all of the people who worked so hard to help him as he learned to become a king.

And so Gwendal took Gunter's hand in his and pulled the lavender-haired man decisively back onto the dance floor, resting an arm in the curve of Gunter's waist and clasping their other hands together before nodding once to Conrad.

Conrad smiled and turned the music on, and Yuuri watched Gwendal lead.

"Wow, I thought Gunter would be leading. I mean… since he studies this stuff professionally," the young man marveled after a moment, and tried very hard to watch the steps instead of the nice picture his two friends made.

"Gwendal is required to know these things as a diplomat as well," Conrad explained simply. "Now pay attention, sire," he coaxed. "It's not at all that complicated once you figure out the patterns."

"Uh, sure," Yuuri responded, and laughed a bit sheepishly. "Not…complicated at all."

Conrad, as usual, read through his king's uneasiness and put a hand on his shoulder. "This one, I think, is about the pauses," he explained, quietly, and began tapping a gentle, steady rhythm with his fingertips against the younger man's shirt. "There, you see? Every eighth beat."

"Oh!" Yuuri realized after the fourth or fifth time through, and laughed to himself. "And pause for two."

Conrad beamed. "Exactly."

They watched for a while longer like that, Conrad continuing to very gently tap out the beat against Yuuri's shoulder while Yuuri mirrored the movement with his own hand on his leg. "I think I get it," he proclaimed after Gwendal and Gunter had taken a good three or four turns around the room.

"I think so too," Conrad agreed, and stood, proffering the young king a hand. "Shall we try it then?"

"Oh! Oh heika!" Gunter cried, when he saw Yuuri happily place his hand in Conrad's and stand to take the floor. "Are you ready already? Oh, so smart! I knew you'd catch on quickly this way!"

"Yes, yes," Gwendal told him in an infinitely calming manner, and continued to guide the happily bubbling teacher with his arms. "Don't lose count yourself, Gunter."

"Oh silly, of course not!" Gunter responded with a sniff and a little toss of his head. "I'm very good at this dance!"

"Mmm," Gwendal grunted elusively in reply, and dipped Gunter on cue.

Gunter's eyes laughed back up at him as they held the position for the two-count. "Though I admit, I'm rather surprised _you_ still remember it so well after all this time, Gwendal."

The corner of Gwendal's lip twitched at that, whether in irritation or vague amusement no one could quite tell given the naturally severe set of his features. "Yes, well… as I recall, I had a very insistent instructor," he said simply, and gently pulled Gunter upright again when the two-count ended.

Conrad in the meantime, put one hand against the curve of Yuuri's waist and took the shorter boy's hand in his. "I'll lead first, so you can figure out the movement pattern next, hmm?" he offered, much to Yuuri's relief. "We'll match Gwendal and Gunter's movements from behind so you can watch and feel how it's supposed to go at the same time."

Yuuri took a deep breath and nodded, craning his neck a little so he could see over Conrad's shoulder as the other pair glided across the floor to the sweeping tune of the music. "Na, Conrad… do you think we'll get to be as good at it as the two of them are together?" he asked, and was still very impressed by how harmoniously Gwendal and Gunter could move arm in arm like that.

Conrad's smile held every confidence in the world. "I think you and I will be just fine, heika."

Yuuri couldn't help but grin back at that, because when Conrad said it, there was nothing else left for the young king to do but believe. "Don't call me that," he added automatically, and looked into Conrad's eyes as they smiled at one another, poised for the first time together upon the open dance floor.

Conrad chuckled and squeezed the younger man's hand in his as they prepared to begin at the next count of one. "My apologies… Yuuri."

They laughed the whole time that they moved across the floor-- sometimes stumbling, sometimes off the beat, sometimes not even listening to the music at all-- but afterwards, even Gwendal had to admit that in the moments when he'd paused to look at the pair, the two of them had danced beautifully well together.

**END**


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